Talk:BreakTheInternet/@comment-3575890-20170409182916
Clannah is the most heartbreakingly tragic ship I have ever seen. They both loved each other so much, but external forces continually kept them from each other when they both needed each other the most. Clay is forever plagued with the guilt of never telling Hannah how he felt when she needed to hear it. Yes, maybe it wouldn't have been enough. She was in too deep by then, but she was also driven to this point because she's felt so alone, undervalued, and unloved. Clay could have helped ease some of that. He was always the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I fully believe his friendship and support kept her afloat as long as what was possible before she couldn't hold on anymore. She loved him and he her, and that alone had the power to make everything just a tiny bit better day by day; if only temporarily. He was her hope, her will to keep fighting. Every time that she expressed wanting to let go, her heart kept coming back to Clay - the one person she was holding onto until she let him go and instead of fighting for her, he walked away. Clay is wrong to think he was responsible for Hannah's death. He absolutely was not. But he is right to think that he could have done more than he did and that's the beautiful tragedy that is Clannah. In another life, they could have been happy. They could have been married and lived out their lives together long and fulfilling. They could have had it all. They were perfect for each other, but came together at the worst possible time as well as the best for them both all at once. And yet, Hannah went to her grave believing he hated her, and he was left in the dark about how she felt about him until having to hear from her directly beyond the grave that he failed her. They never got to tell each other they loved each other. They never even had a chance. It's so unfair because they ended before they could even begin, and yet their love story is one for the ages underlain with memories of friendship and star crossed love, themes of comfort and understanding, tears and heartache, guilt and resentment, and overall earth-shattering tragedy. Somewhere in an alternate timeline, as we glimpsed in Hannah's fantasy, she's alive and walking arm-in-arm with Clay down the hall, celebrating their engagement with Ms. Baker, meeting at the altar the day of their wedding, tearfully seeing their child off at the bus stop their first day of school, cuddled up on the sofa watching home movies and thinking about how good they have it, and how it almost didn't happen back when things were different. When it was a different life. That montage is all that keeps it from being purely a tragedy and I am so thankful for it and for Clannah, a ship that has simultaneously touched me to the core as it has broken my heart. Hannah and Clay both deserved so much better respectively as individuals and as a ship.